The Liar and the Light
by LovelyFarron
Summary: I hate it, this feeling of helplessness, this feeling of utter and total despair. I've been living a lie for seventeen months, saying that it didn't bother me, that I was ok with having everything I'd ever held dear to me taken away. CHAP 459 SPOILERS


A/N: I felt the need to write some IchiRuki after the last chapter that was out.

Anime/manga: Bleach

Pairing: IchiRuki, from Ichigo's POV

Genre: Romance/Angst

Rating: T

Disclaimer: NOT MINE!

The Liar and the Light

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

I hate it, this feeling of helplessness, this feeling of utter and total despair. I've been living a lie for seventeen months, saying that it didn't bother me, that I was ok with having everything I'd ever held dear to me taken away. I told everyone that'd I never wanted power, that I'd always been looking for a way to get rid of what I had. It was a lie.

A complete, total, fucking lie.

And they knew it too. They all did, even Keigo.

They all saw the change made in me after the Winter War, that final stand against Aizen. I had been fighting to save them, all of them, and I had wanted to protect them no matter the cost. I would have gladly given up my life just to ensure their safety, given up everything that I was. So when I had found out that defeating Aizen would cost me my power as a shinigami I had given it up without a thought.

In retrospect, I was a fool.

Don't get me wrong, I would have still given up my powers to save them all even if I had known all the agony that I would go through months down the line, but I would have at least stopped and reflected a bit more on what exactly that meant.

Losing my powers meant losing my connection to the other world. Losing my powers meant losing all the friends that I had made from beyond the grave. Losing my powers meant losing the means that I used to make sure that those I cared about, and even complete strangers, were safe. Losing my powers meant losing _me_. But even more than losing myself, the man that had grown through all the trials and tribulations, I had lost something more important and infinitely more valuable.

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

I stopped living after that day, that day that I lost the other half of my soul. I thought that I'd never see it again, that I was doomed to walk the earth alone forever. I had wanted to protect that separate piece of me, keep it safe more than anything else, and I had…but at what cost?

It was maddening; if I had wanted to save the very thing that kept me alive, kept me strong, kept me being me, I had to give it up. To make sure that her lungs filled with air, that her heart beat within her chest…I had to make the ultimate sacrifice. I didn't regret, not one bit. But that still didn't stop the rain from falling, didn't stop the pain and the hurt and the devastating loss that broke my soul and crushed my heart.

I had thought that maybe it wouldn't be so bad, watching her go. After all, she could come back whenever she wanted in a gigai, it wouldn't be so bad, right? I had tried to convince myself of that, tried to make myself believe the lie that I was feeding myself. I couldn't believe it though. Even if she had come back in a gigai, it wouldn't have been the same. She would still be a soul, still have powers…she would be protecting _me_ when it should be me protecting _her_. I couldn't stomach that, couldn't accept it.

And then she had vanished, right before my eyes, taking with her what was left of me and leaving me a broken man. I had known that seeing her go like that, watching her vanish, her blip of spirit energy gone from my radar just like that would hurt. I just hadn't known how much. I hadn't known that it would be the most agonizing thing that had ever happened to me, hadn't known that knowing that she was right _there_ in _front _of me and yet I couldn't _touch, see, hear, taste, _or_ smell_ her…it drove me mad.

The bond was still there, nothing could break that. I could still _feel_ her in my heart and I knew that if something were to ever happen to her that I would feel it, but I wanted to be _with_ her.

She was my friend, my partner, my better half. She was the moon to my sun, reflecting my rays and giving them back to me when I needed comfort. She understood me like no one else ever had or ever would; she was my _light_.

And she was gone.

Well, not gone for good, but I couldn't touch her, couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, taste her, or smell her.

That was when I knew that I valued her as something more than a friend. Hell, I'd always known I think, but it was at that time that I consciously recognized it.

And that was when I realized that letting that separate part go of me without telling them how much they meant to me was the dumbest idea I'd ever had.

And it hurt like hell.

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

I clung to her memory like a child clings to its mother. I refused to let it go. I kept the shinigami badge that reminded me of our adventures close and by my side at all times. It was the only thing I had left of that world, of that time that seemed so long ago. I didn't want to forget but it hurt too much to remember.

Sometimes the despair overwhelmed me and threatened to drive me crazy. Sometimes the nightmares of battles fought came back to haunt me, waking me in the middle of the night. Sometimes I thought of the downtimes in-between battles, the times spent in peace. Sometimes I dreamed of alternate realities in which I'd failed to save her that one time or failed to stop Aizen. Sometimes I saw her lying dead in my arms.

I would always wake up, choking on the scream stuck in my throat, my eyes wide and my heart beating its way out of my chest.

And she wasn't there to beat me senseless and tell me that I was being stupid, that she was alive, that they were all alive and it was all thanks to me, that I had _won_.

But…if I had won, why did it feel like I had lost everything?

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

I didn't think about the future because some part of me had resigned to always being a deputy shinigami. Some part of me had thought that they'd hire me on or something, or at least give me some sort of money that I could use to support myself in the world of the living. Some part of me had thought that I wouldn't stay in Karakura Town, that as soon as I was able to I'd go and join them or something.

I'd always had trouble fitting in in life, not just because of my hair color mind you, but just because of me and who I was. I'd never been close to anyone in life, Chad being the only exception, and as much as I loved and cared for my sisters and dad, they didn't understand me. Not like she did, not like she still _does_. Orihime and Ishida were my friends as well, my _nakama_, but I couldn't sponge off of them later in life or take advantage of their kindness (grudging-kindness in Ishida's case).

But with the shinigami…I'd found a home.

Knowing that my father was originally shinigami partially explained why I felt more at home with a bunch of dead people than I did with a bunch of living ones. Actually, they weren't really dead. How could they have been dead and yet been so alive?

Keigo asked me what I wanted to do later in life, and I had lied in telling him I hadn't thought about it. I had, in actuality, given it a lot of thought. But there was no job on earth, no job that I could do, that would make me feel as fulfilled and whole as the one that I'd been doing just seventeen months earlier. Nothing would ever be more satisfying or gratifying.

I was full of lies; my life had become one giant deception. I repressed what I felt and tried to move through life with as little conflict as possible.

I was such a fool.

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

So when I'd been offered a chance to get powers, not my original powers mind you, but powers nonetheless, I'd jumped at the chance without a second thought as to who I was trusting, who I was doubting, and who I was betraying.

It didn't matter what my powers were or how I'd get them. It didn't matter what humiliating things I went through, what I had to suffer in order to obtain them…it didn't matter the people that I had to cut down or the blood that I had to bleed. I had to see her again, had to see them all again really. I had to see my friends, the friends that I had grown to think of as an extension to my family.

I needed to see Renji and his ridiculous hair and tattooed face. I needed to see Byakuya and piss him off some more. I needed to see Toshiro and tease him about his height. I needed to shy away from Rangiku's seductive ways. I needed to rub Ikkaku's bald head for good look. I needed to try and pluck one of Yumichika's crazy, multi-colored eyebrow things. I needed to make Hanataro sweat a little. I needed to run away from crazy Kenpachi.

But most of all…I needed _her_ to slap me silly. I needed _her_ to tell me that I was being stupid and reckless and foolish.

And so…I had turned a blind eye to all the suspicious activity surrounding me, believing a complete and total stranger.

And in the process I had lost what little I had left.

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

I am begging for my powers back now, I am screaming and crying and breaking and dying. I am losing my mind, losing track of what is right and wrong and who I am. I am losing my hope, the only sliver of happiness I'd had in seventeen months.

My friends are my enemies. My enemy was my friend.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

He said he's sparing my life and that I should thank him, but what kind of life is he leaving me to lead? I am powerless, weak. I am breaking, incomplete and empty. He has taken my shot at happiness, ripped my soul to pieces.

I am angry, more so than I have ever been in my life. My grip on sanity is slipping, free falling into oblivion and I could care less.

I want to tear him to pieces, I want to kill him. Never before have I felt such hate, not even towards Aizen. This is personal, this is my life, my light, my hope, my everything. The darkness inside me is overwhelming; I can almost hear my darker self cackling and screaming, his thirst for revenge whetting my appetite. I may no longer have contact with him, he may no longer have control over me, but that does not mean that he is any less a part of me. He is there, deep inside me, locked away.

And he wants me to kill.

But just as I am about to attack…

…the betrayal is made complete.

My own father and Urahara have turned on me.

The loss is stinging me, far more painful than the sword piercing my chest. I should have known that Ginjou wouldn't be satisfied until he'd ripped away the last things that I'd held dear, but really…this was too much.

I was the last one left that saw through Tsukishima's betrayal. I was crazy in the eyes of everyone else; they thought that I'd lost it after months of trying to hold the broken pieces of myself together. They thought I was mad, nuts, a lunatic. They were probably right.

I had been lying to myself, to them for so long that they have no reason to think that they are the ones in the wrong, that they are the ones that have turned and not me. I have been shouting out to the world that I am done fighting, that I am happy being "normal." I have been denying myself the luxury of letting it all out, of letting it all go. I have been an idiot, a moron, a fool.

I am not even sure anymore if it is really me who is the good guy. How can I be good when I have been trying so hard to be deceitful?

I am breaking. I am dying. I am done living the lie.

_Tsukishima is smiling._

_Ginjo is leaving._

_Uryu is bleeding._

_I am screaming._

_The rain is falling._

But then my father says something and my heart stops.

"…you idiot. It wasn't me who stabbed you. Look closely. You should be able to see their form by now. Just who…is holding that sword!"

I look back.

And my heart stops again.

_Tsukishima is worried._

_Ginjo is confused._

_Uryu is watching._

_I am silent._

_Rukia is shining._

_The rain has stopped falling._


End file.
